MA Thesis project
Mentors: Claire Reymond, Jinsu Ahn, Arno Schubbach
FHNW Academy of Art and Design
Cultural context in communication
A digital platform for intercultural dialogue and reflection. Communication assistant.This project creates simulated real-life scenarios based on authentic user responses, allowing people to experience, share, and learn from diverse cultural perspectives in a safe and inclusive space. It is not about teaching the “right” way to communicate, but about exploring how different ways of seeing can coexist and connect.
From autor:
Based on my personal experience as an international student who encountered unfamiliar cultural norms, communication styles, and social expectations, the project goes beyond traditional educational models. It offers a digital platform designed not to teach culture in a linear or instructional way, but to enable people to live, interact, and participate in intercultural experiences through immersive and interactive digital communication.
The irreplaceable value lies in dialogue — not between the user and the machine, but between people with all their differences, emotions, vulnerability, and layers of interpretation. One of the project's key innovations is the decision to move away from a one-way learning model toward an interactive dialogic ecosystem. The final concept focuses on a living system that presents culturally sensitive simulations based on real interactions. Instead of relying on programmed logic or impersonal feedback, the platform offers a structure in which culturally conditioned human reactions become learning tools for others. In this way, the platform acts as a living archive—not of culture as a static object, but of culture as it is experienced, discussed, and co-created in the moment.
The project does not attempt to standardize interaction or normalize a single way of communicating. Instead, it deliberately creates what I call a “space between” — an open and reflective zone of communication that values ambiguity, invites curiosity, and respects differences. Misunderstandings are seen not as failures but as opportunities for growth.